HOLTEC’S SMR-160 TO REPLACE COAL-BURNING POWER PLANTS

King Coal, which undergirded the Industrial Revolution and quenched the world’s rising thirst for energy for the past three centuries, still provides over half of the globe’s energy needs. But rising concerns about coal’s environmental impact is causing energy producers to consider the premature shutdown and decommissioning of thousands of coal-burning plants which portends a serious disruption to the global energy supply infrastructure that renewables alone cannot solve.
The technical breakthrough that we announce today seeks to minimize the impact of this looming wholesale loss of existing coal plants by preserving most of their physical assets and replacing their boilers with Holtec’s SMR-160 nuclear steam supply system.
The ability for SMR-160 to deliver steam at any desired pressure also opens new vistas to use clean energy, such as for high-pressure steam as feed stock for industrial applications or providing low pressure steam for district heating to cities and municipalities wishing to eliminate their current use of methane and CO2-producing fossil fuels, whether to meet clean energy goals or to protect against a forced scarcity of fossil fuels due to geo-political tensions.
The Holtec Inherently Safe Modular Underground Reactor SMR-160 is a design of a 160 MWe pressurized water reactor (PWR) small modular reactor,
Holtec International is a supplier of equipment and systems for the energy industry based in Jupiter, Florida, USA.
(Source and image: Holtec – SMR-160 rendering)